Start Together
Clear teaching. Proper explanations. Safe, meaningful jobs. Learn what good looks, sounds and feels like.
“We did it.”THE PEA JOURNEY
You both get better.
The good bit is doing it together.
Pea isn't a pile of recipes to tick off. Missions make dinner. Skills build ability. Tips make the kitchen work better. And the whole thing is designed to turn cooking into shared time rather than something that gets in the way of it.
THE IDEA IN ONE LINE
Same dinner.
Two different lessons.
One shared experience.
Two different lessons.
One shared experience.
Detailed underneath. Simple on the surface. Useful enough for a Tuesday. Fun enough that you both want to do it again.
PROGRESSION WITHOUT THE SCHOOL REPORT
Four stages. No rush.
You don't “pass” a technique because you clicked Complete once. Pea increases ownership first, then gradually removes scaffolding as experience builds.
Take More On
Keep the guidance, but increase responsibility. Own components, make choices and practise judgement repeatedly.
“I did more of it myself.”Escape the Reci-Pea
Understand why. Taste, adjust, substitute, judge and recover. Pea starts asking questions instead of giving every answer.
“I know what I'm doing.”Lead the Kitchen
Plan, improvise, divide jobs and teach. Sometimes YOU lead. Sometimes THEY do. The kitchen becomes shared territory.
“I can make this happen.”
A Pea rule:
more responsibility ≠ less explanation.
Especially early on, richer guidance matters: reasons, sensory cues, simple imagery and what to do when it goes wrong.
SAME DINNER. DIFFERENT TEACHING.
Tell Pea how to cook with you tonight.
The adult and younger cook don't have to be at matching levels. Change either one without changing dinner.
YOU
THEM
BURGER NIGHT · HEAT
Put it down. Listen.
Heat the pan first. When the burger goes in you want a clear, confident sizzle. Barely a sound? The pan probably needs longer. Aggressive smoking and blackening? Ease the heat down.
TOO COOLpale · wet · quiet
GOODsizzle · browning
TOO HOTsmoke · blackening
THEIR PART
This is a prototype of how one core step can change its teaching layer without becoming three separate recipes.
Listen with you. Is it quiet, sizzling, or sounding a bit wild? They can help you judge the pan without going near the hot zone.
BEFORE THE KNIFE. BEFORE THE PAN.
Bring them up to your level.
In skill — and in stature. If you want a smaller cook genuinely involved, the kitchen has to be set up so involvement is actually possible.
- Stable, suitable working height — never a precarious chair or makeshift stack.
- A defined station where they can actually see what they're doing.
- Suitable tools and ingredients within easy reach.
- Hot, sharp and raw-food boundaries that are obvious.
- A clear route for the adult carrying hot or heavy things.
THEIR ZONEmix · measure · prep
SHARED ZONEtaste · choose · learn
YOUR ZONEhot · sharp · raw
Not every kitchen looks like this. The point is to make the boundaries clear before dinner gets busy.
SKILLS, NOT JUST RECIPES
Learn something once. Meet it again at dinner.
Missions introduce and repeat Skills. The detailed courses grow with you; the public view shows the journey without giving away the lesson itself.
Kitchen Setup & Safety
Bring them up to your level, clean hands, clear zones, communication and a kitchen that works for two.
Knife Skills
Control before speed. Consistency, choosing a cut, suitable younger-cook routes, honing, sharpening and care.
Heat
Read the pan. Browning, simmering, heat recovery, residual heat and what “medium-high” actually means.
Seasoning & Tasting
Taste. Think. Change. Taste again. Build judgement without turning dinner into a test.
Timing & Organisation
Run the kitchen: sequence jobs, use the gaps, divide work and get dinner to the table together.
Sauces
Texture, ratios, emulsions, roux, rescue and eventually making the sauce the food needs rather than the one the recipe dictates.
Dough
Feel the change. Fermentation, handling, shaping and learning when not to throw more flour at it.
The Skill Shelf
Eggs, fish, vegetables, baking, plating and the things families tell me Pea should teach next.
See the path, unlock the teaching. Later stages and paid Skills won't be shipped as hidden text in a public page; access will be enforced by Pea itself.
CLEAN AS YOU GO
Messy is fine.
Dirty isn't the same thing.
Cleanliness lives inside every Mission: handwashing, raw/ready separation, tasting spoons, quick resets and leaving the kitchen ready for next time.
PEA TIPWaiting time is reset time.
Pan's got four minutes? That's enough to deal with the board and clear the next bit of bench.
AND IT STILL HAS TO BE FUN
01Still counts. Five minutes together is better than a perfect plan you never attempt.
02No forced “yum”. “I don't like it” is useful. What don't you like about it?
03Give them something real. Ownership beats pretend stirring.
04Make a mess. Doughy hands and flour on the bench are allowed.
THE PEA TOOLBOX
Tips, tools and tricks worth the drawer space.
I want to collect the useful little things that make cooking with a younger cook genuinely easier — and ignore the novelty tat.
Does it actually help?
Child-friendly tools and kitchen gadgets get tested for usefulness, not cuteness.
A five-minute way in.
For nights when there's no time for the whole Mission but you still want something shared.
The grown-up gets better too.
A tiny technique or judgement call that improves tonight's dinner and tomorrow's cooking.
The shortcut isn't failure.
Frozen wedges? Bought dough? Sometimes the useful lesson is knowing what to skip.
TOGETHER DOESN'T LOOK THE SAME IN EVERY HOUSE
The relationship layer can grow too.
Future Pea routes can adapt the shared experience without making assumptions about what a family looks like.
Everyday Together
Real weeknights, routines, hunger and bedtimes. Short join-in routes when that's what the day allows.
Weekend Together
More time, more ceremony, more of the cooking shared from beginning to end.
Reconnecting
Low-pressure shared jobs and something to make together when the time you have matters more than the recipe.
Growing Independence
Gradually reverse the roles: they lead more, you become the spare pair of hands.
These are future routes, not labels Pea forces onto anyone.
FOUNDING FAMILIES
Come and build the pod with me.
The early route into everything I’m building. You get the real Pea programme now, new core missions as they arrive, and the Founding Lab where I can try ideas with the people actually cooking them.
YOU TRY IT→YOU TELL ME→I CHANGE IT→YOU GET CREDIT
Founding isn’t “pay less because there’s less”. It’s a thank-you rate for being here while your feedback can still directly shape Pea.
THE UNREASONABLY KEEN OPTION
V I Pea
For the discerning Pea. The Pea that knows a good pod when it sees one. A Pea, frankly, bursting for more.
One payment. Core Pea access plus the Founding Lab and V I Pea extras while Pea operates the relevant service.For people with more money than sense. Or who just really like what I'm building.
“Forever-ish.” The sensible monthly option will remain the sensible option.PEA'S MISSION
“Dad, can you come and play?”
Pea started with my daughter asking me to play while I was making dinner. I said I couldn't. I was cooking.
Afterwards, that bothered me. I love cooking. I want her to grow up confident around food and confident in a kitchen. But more than that, I want the time we have together to actually feel like time together.
So I started wondering why making dinner and playing with her had to be two separate things.
Pea is my attempt to find out.
I want to make proper food with my daughter, help her gradually take more of it on, and become a better cook myself along the way.
I don't have every answer yet. That's part of the point. I want families who come along early to tell me what works, what doesn't, what took far too long, what their younger cook surprised them by doing — and what made them want to do it again.
Because ultimately I'm trying to build the thing I wanted when she asked me to play: something that lets me say, “Yep. Come and cook with me.”
START WHERE YOU ARE
Three dinners. Both of you learning. Free.
You don't need to choose a stage first. Start cooking and let Pea learn where the useful level is.
Start Burger Night →